An Junlie held Douzai, his heart seizing up as if he had lost the most precious thing. Ziye was in danger, and he hadn't reached her in time to help.

If anything happened to Ziye because of this—anything catastrophic—he would never forgive himself! What use was a man if he couldn't even protect the woman he loved?

An Junlie felt completely undone. Douzai looked up at him with wet, glistening eyes and chirped, "Jee~" He was numb, not hearing it.

Douzai became annoyed, opened its mouth, and bit down hard on his wrist. These were teeth capable of biting metal, infinitely sharp.

That single bite instantly dragged An Junlie’s soul back into place. An Junlie gently set Douzai down on the seat, then looked up again, his eyes now perfectly clear.

"If she is alive, I must see her; if she is dead, I must see her body!" The Tuba Star System was thick as ink, the only light coming from the running lamps of his two ships. The space station was gone, the stargate vanished, the lighthouse nowhere to be seen, and the interstellar lanes had disappeared without a trace.

It was as if they were drifting in a star-scape that hadn't yet been charted or visited by anyone. The battleship, having lost its navigational beacons, had no idea which direction to proceed.

Hearing An Junlie’s command, the crew finally steadied their nerves, loaded the probes into the turrets, and prepared to fire. A row of eight probes, each spaced three thousand kilometers apart—the captain wouldn't stop until An Junlie commanded it.

They fired all two hundred probes from the magazine in one go, then activated the scanning system for a deep sweep. As long as they were within the probes' detectable range, nothing—no anomalous space, large structures, debris, or living things—could escape their scan.

What terrified the captain was that the two hundred probes returned absolutely nothing. The captain retracted the probes, cruised to an unsearched area ahead, and fired again.

They repeated this process again and again, sweeping from one side of the star system to the other, yet finding not a single thing. An Junlie stared intently at the search screen, an unprecedented fear gripping his heart.

Space was full of unsolved mysteries, but nothing had ever been this bizarre! At that moment, he had been less than 200km from Bobo’s destroyer.

If the destroyer had stopped moving, it would have taken him mere minutes to catch up. Yet, in those few minutes, everything had vanished.

What on earth happened? Looking at the captain and vice-captain who were exchanging bewildered glances, he couldn't bring himself to ask.

He knew their fear was even greater than his own. After a long moment of thought, he finally said, "We must change our detection method.

Activate the space environment detector." The captain nodded and complied, turning the system on. The space environment detector was a mandatory system installed on Angel Legion battleships, used to gauge the safety of the environment when encountering obstructions in unknown or hostile regions.

It checked for particles, radiation, and elemental composition in the current environment. The moment the detector engaged, the red line representing radiation shot upward like a rocket, immediately triggering a piercing system alarm: "Beeeep—Nuclear radiation concentration too high, do not leave the ship!" The alarm continued to climb.

Seeing that the indicator was about to max out, the captain quickly halted the measurement. After stopping, the red line for radiation had reached its highest possible value.

The green line for particles remained within the normal range, but the primary blue line climbed to a level just below the red, also threatening to max out. The people aboard the battleship looked at each other, sinking into silence.

This data undeniably proved that a nuclear explosion had occurred in this star system just minutes ago! "Jee~" Douzai scrambled up from its seat, wheezing slightly, and stretched a paw toward An Junlie, asking for a hug.

An Junlie suddenly felt lost for words, his mind a chaotic swirl. He instinctively pulled Douzai into an embrace.

By this era, nuclear weapons had evolved far beyond mere planetary destruction. This terrifying concentration of radiation could not have been caused by just one or two nuclear bombs.

This meant that anyone in this star system just moments ago likely had no chance of survival. Two questions remained: Even if nuclear bombs destroyed the space station and the stargate, they shouldn't have left absolutely no trace—where had all the space debris gone?

The second question: Who detonated the nuclear bombs? Bobo’s destroyer could not possibly carry such terrifying weapons of mass destruction as super-nukes, nor could Ziye have acquired them during her kidnapping.

Even if she had them, she wouldn't commit such a horrific act. In other words, there was another party involved.

An Junlie let out a silent breath. "In five minutes, the battleship and the escort ship will dock.

I will take a contingent of personnel on the escort ship and leave; the rest of you will remain in this sector." He paused. "This area might still harbor others or an ambush.

Be careful not to let yourselves be discovered." The captain looked puzzled. "Commander, where are you going?" An Junlie narrowed his eyes.

"I am going to pursue whoever launched the nukes. Hopefully, they are the ones who abducted Ziye." That way, Ziye would at least have a chance of survival.

The captain worried, "But, the escort ship..." An Junlie patted the captain's station. "Don't worry.

I know what I'm doing. I rely on you all." The battleship and the escort ship docked.

An Junlie transferred from the battleship to the escort, commanding it to depart the Tuba Star System. He did not head toward the Babada Star System, but instead charted a course for a system in the opposite direction.

He stopped there, dialed the Chief Intelligence Officer’s number, and commanded, "Gather intelligence reports on all intelligence personnel in star systems near Tuba. Immediately notify me of anything concerning the Tuba Star System." The Chief Intelligence Officer sounded slightly surprised by An Junlie's intensity regarding the matter.

He reported, "We have already received news of Tuba's bizarre annihilation, though no legion has confirmed intelligence yet. However, intelligence personnel at Babada Five Space Station reported receiving a distress signal from Tuba Space Station, and simultaneously, as contact was lost there, a single destroyer entered Babada’s jurisdiction." An Junlie’s heart gave a violent leap.

—The destroyer reached the Babada system? That means Ziye was not within the range of the nuclear attack?

The near-despair that had just consumed him was instantly washed away by this piece of information, replaced by renewed sunlight. An Junlie had never been so grateful to the Chief Intelligence Officer; his voice was almost choked with emotion.

"Thank you so much, brother!" The Chief Intelligence Officer chuckled. "Isn't this what I'm supposed to do?" An Junlie regained his composure.

"Can you get me a list of every person aboard that destroyer?" The Chief Intelligence Officer slapped his chest. "I'll have an answer for you in five minutes." An Junlie let out a breath of relief, thanked the officer, and fell silent, tracing the wound Douzai had inflicted.

At that moment, the news of the Tuba Star System space station’s mysterious disappearance was just starting to break on the main screen—they were a beat behind him. The captain suggested, "Should we head to the Babada system now?" An Junlie shook his head.

"No need. Going there now would be pointless.

We know about this, and everyone else will know soon enough. The person on that destroyer is Bobo.

Emaniette, the son of the Interstellar Federation’s Supreme Commander. The Commander will undoubtedly ensure that no one finds out the destroyer just returned from the Tuba system to protect him." The captain's eyes widened.

"You mean...?" An Junlie squinted slightly. "Head to the Interstellar Federation Capital Hospital!" -RS